Everything you've ever wanted to know about Gander.

Anyone, anywhere in the world can join Gander. You can sign up, browse the platform, explore content, follow people and like posts without being verified.

To post, comment or chat, you’ll need to complete Human Check to confirm you’re a real adult. At the moment, our Human Check methods are available only to people in Canada, so active participation is currently limited to Canadian residents.

We plan to expand Human Check to additional countries over time.

Yes. Gander is free to use, and we intend to keep the core experience free.

Rather than relying on surveillance advertising or selling personal information, we’re building a sustainable business through ethical advertising, optional subscriptions for additional features, and services built on Gander’s network infrastructure.

Our goal is to build a platform that’s good for people, not one that depends on maximizing clicks, outrage or engagement at any cost.

Absolutely. We welcome businesses, creators, non-profits, community groups, media organizations and public institutions on Gander.

Today, an individual creates the account on behalf of the organization. If they want to post, comment or chat, they must complete Human Check themselves.

We’re currently building dedicated organization features, including multi-admin accounts, business verification and additional management tools. We expect these features to begin rolling out fall of 2026.

Our goal is to make it easy for organizations to participate while ensuring that every account is ultimately managed by real, verified humans.

Gander uses one-time passcodes (OTPs) instead of passwords.

When you sign in, we’ll send a secure code to your email address or phone number. Enter the code, and you’re in—no password to remember, reset or have stolen.

You can learn more about why we chose passwordless login in our article: Yep, we moved away from passwords. Here’s why. [link]

If you’re signing in by email, check your Spam, Junk and Promotions folders. Some providers—particularly Microsoft services such as Outlook, Hotmail and Live—may delay or filter one-time passcode (OTP) emails. Adding mail.gander.social to your allow list can also help. Read how to do this here.

If you’re signing in by SMS, wait a minute or two and request a new code. Make sure your phone can receive text messages and that you’ve entered the correct number.

If one method isn’t working, try the other.

Please note: SMS login is currently available only in Canada. We’re working to expand reliable authentication options for international users.

We collect as little personal information as possible to provide and secure the service. This includes your email address or phone number for login purposes, along with the account and profile information you choose to provide.

If you complete Human Check, we receive only the confirmation that you’re a human adult. We don’t receive or store your identity documents.

You can find a complete list of the information we collect, and why, in our Privacy Policy.

You can browse, explore, follow people and like posts on Gander without completing Human Check, though you do need to create an account.

To post, comment or chat, you need to complete Human Check to confirm that you’re a real adult. We do this to reduce bots and bad actors, and to help keep Gander 18+.

Currently, there are two ways to complete Human Check:

through an eligible institutional email, such as a university, association, union, news organization or other approved institution
through Canada Post Identity+, either in the app or in person at a participating Canada Post location

Gander does not see or retain your personal identity documents. We only receive the confirmation signals we need: that you’re human and that you’re an adult. Canada Post deletes verification data within two hours.

We’ll continue adding more verification options so people have as many safe, privacy-preserving choices as possible.

For more, read our post on Human Check.

Human Check is designed to confirm that you’re a real adult without requiring Gander to collect or store your identity documents.

When you verify through Canada Post Identity+ or another approved provider, Gander receives only the signals we need to operate the platform. For example, that you’re human and that you’re an adult. We don’t receive your government ID or other personal verification documents.

As we add additional Human Check providers, we’ll continue to prioritize privacy, data minimization and user choice.

No. Your display name, profile photo and location are all optional.

You’re welcome to use your real identity, a pseudonym, or simply a nickname. Human Check verifies that you’re a real adult, not what you choose to call yourself.

Yes. You can create an account, browse the platform, discover content, follow people and like posts without completing Human Check.

You’ll only need to complete Human Check if you want to post, comment or chat. This helps us reduce bots and bad actors while keeping Gander a space for real adult humans.

All Gander data is stored in Canada using Canadian-hosted, open-source cloud infrastructure.

Because our infrastructure is hosted in Canada and operated under Canadian jurisdiction, your data is subject to Canadian laws rather than foreign cloud legislation such as the U.S. CLOUD Act or Patriot Act.

Keeping our infrastructure in Canada is an important part of Gander’s commitment to privacy, transparency and Canadian digital sovereignty.

No. Gander does not sell your personal information. In fact, beyond your login information (your phone number or email address), we do everything we can to avoid collecting personal information in the first place.

Of course, you may choose to include personal information in your profile, posts or messages—that’s entirely up to you.

We believe your personal information belongs to you, not advertisers or data brokers. That’s why our business is built around ethical revenue models—not surveillance advertising or selling user data.

You can learn more in our Privacy Policy.

Yes.

You can download your content or delete your account at any time, subject to any legal obligations we have to retain certain records.

Because Gander is built on the AT Protocol, we’re also working toward giving you greater ownership and portability of your online identity. As interoperability evolves, you’ll be able to export your account and move to another compatible AT Protocol provider while preserving your identity, content and social graph where supported.

For assistance, or to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us or see our Privacy Policy.

You do.

You retain ownership of the content you create and share on Gander. By posting, you grant Gander the limited rights necessary to display and distribute your content in accordance with our Terms of Use.

Gander is moderated according to our Community Guidelines, which were developed with guidance from Canadian legal experts and informed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the principles of UNDRIP, .

We use automated tools to help identify content that may violate our rules, but important moderation decisions involve human review. Users can also report content they believe breaks our Community Guidelines, and we investigate those reports as quickly as possible.

Learn more in our Community Guidelines and our article on Platform Governance.

Yes. We believe people should be free to express lawful opinions, challenge ideas and participate in public conversation, even when others disagree.

Freedom of expression doesn’t mean every type of content belongs everywhere. Like any community, Gander has rules that prohibit content such as harassment, threats, hate speech, child sexual abuse material, and other illegal or harmful material.

Our goal isn’t to create a platform where “anything goes.” It’s to create one where people can speak openly without being subjected to abuse, intimidation or manipulation.

Learn more about our approach in our article on Platform Governance.

Posts and account on Gander can be reported if you believe it violates our Community Guidelines.

When our moderators remove content following a human review, we notify the account owner by email and explain the reason for the decision, including the guideline that was violated.

If you believe we’ve made a mistake, you can appeal the decision by replying to that email. Every appeal is reviewed by a human moderator.

We’re continuing to improve our moderation systems, including providing clearer notifications for automated actions.

Gander’s goal is to give people more context so they can make informed decisions about what they read and share.

Today, news links are labelled using media bias and factual reporting information from Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC), an independent organization that evaluates news publishers using established editorial criteria. While no rating system is perfect, these labels help people better understand the source they’re reading.

We also include visible metadata on posts to make it more difficult to impersonate news organizations or share fabricated news images. As Gander evolves, we’ll continue developing additional tools and policies to address misinformation, misleading content and AI-generated media while supporting healthy public conversation.

We evaluated publisher reputation tools against several criteria, including how they handle user data, whether they rely on AI-generated ratings, where they’re based, their reputation, coverage, and affordability.

We currently use Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) because independent research has found a high degree of agreement across major expert news-rating organizations. A 2023 peer-reviewed study published in PNAS Nexus (Oxford Academic) found that six widely used expert rating systems (including MBFC, NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media, and others) correlated strongly with one another despite using different methodologies and evaluation criteria. In other words, while no rating system is perfect, expert organizations generally identify publisher quality in remarkably similar ways.

That doesn’t mean MBFC is without limitations. It has its detractors, particularly around its use of a U.S.-centric political spectrum, incomplete coverage of some publishers, and the depth of research available for certain outlets. We recognize those shortcomings.

MBFC is also widely used by researchers and recommended by a number of Canadian universities and libraries, including institutions such as the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University.

As a small Canadian company with limited resources, MBFC was the most practical and evidence-based place to start while we continue evaluating additional publisher reputation services. Our goal is to incorporate multiple independent reputation signals over time, giving people more context—not less—and avoiding reliance on any single organization.

Today, you can share text posts, images, image galleries, videos, links (including news articles), and Flicks, our short-form video format. We’re also working on Stories, Events, Buy & Sell, and additional post formats to give you even more ways to connect with others.

No. You’re free to share links from websites across the web, including news sites.

Unlike some platforms, Gander doesn’t suppress or block links. When someone opens a link, it opens in their device’s default web browser.

Yes. News links are allowed on Gander.

You can share links to news articles, commentary, newsletters, blogs and other sources across the web. When someone taps a link, it opens in their device’s browser.

Gander may add labels or context to some news links to help people understand the source, but we don’t block news simply because it’s political or controversial.

Gander has Community Guidelines that set out what is and isn’t permitted on the platform.

Our moderation approach is informed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the principles of UNDRIP, and established Canadian journalism standards.

For details, please read our Community Guidelines.

Not currently. Our initial approach is to keep Gander free of sensitive content while we build the tools to give verified adult members meaningful choice. In the future, members will be able to decide whether certain categories of sensitive content appear in their feeds, openly or behind a sensitivity screen.

For more on this, consult our Community Guidelines.

You can delete your posts at any time.

Editing posts isn’t available yet. One reason is that the AT Protocol, which Gander is built on, doesn’t currently support post editing as part of the protocol. We also believe editing requires careful design to prevent abuse, such as substantially changing a post after people have already viewed, shared or responded to it.

We’re exploring approaches that balance flexibility with transparency, and we’ll introduce editing only when we’re confident it can be done responsibly.

Because we’d rather encourage conversations than competitions.

Gander is designed to help people build relationships and communities, not chase vanity metrics. Our feeds are chronological or prioritize active conversations involving you and the people you follow, so public like counts don’t influence what you see.

Showing large like counts can encourage popularity contests, pile-ons and other forms of social pressure. Instead, we keep the focus on the conversation itself.

If you’re the author, you’ll always be able to see how many likes your posts receive (and, soon, other reactions). Like and repost counts are also visible to others once they expand a post’s comments.

We’re currently building Groups and expect them to launch in the fall of 2026.

While Gander is built on the AT Protocol, our approach to Groups differs from Bluesky’s Communities. We’ll continue exploring interoperability as those standards evolve.

It’s on the way. We’re actively developing a web version of Gander and expect it to be available in the fall of 2026.

Currently, Gander is available in Canadian English and Canadian French.

We’re committed to supporting additional languages over time, including Indigenous languages such as Cree, Ojibwe, Mi’kmaw and Inuktitut.

Accessibility is a priority for Gander, and we’re working to make it one of the most accessible social platforms available.

While there’s still work to do, we’re actively integrating accessibility testing and improvements into our design and development process, rather than treating accessibility as something that’s added later.

Most of Gander’s feeds are currently chronological, giving you a straightforward view of posts as they’re shared. The exception is the Active Conversations feed in your For You page, which highlights discussions that you or people you follow are participating in.

Over time, we’ll introduce additional ethical algorithms designed for different ways of discovering content. Rather than relying on a single opaque algorithm, our goal is to give people meaningful choice over how they browse, discover and experience Gander.

Yes. Gander is built on the AT Protocol, the same open protocol used by Bluesky and other interoperable social apps.

Core social features built on the AT Protocol are designed to remain interoperable, allowing you to participate in the wider open social web rather than being locked into a single platform.

Some Gander features, such as Boards, Groups and other platform-specific experiences, are unique to Gander and may not be available or behave the same way in other AT Protocol apps. Likewise, features developed by other apps may not always appear in Gander.

The AT Protocol is an open standard that allows different social apps to connect across a shared network. Bluesky is one app built on the AT Protocol. Gander is another.

Wingspan is Gander’s Canadian-built infrastructure for the AT Protocol. It provides the services that power Gander while remaining connected to the broader AT Protocol ecosystem.

Today, Gander gives users the option to view content from Bluesky. As Wingspan and the AT Protocol continue to evolve, our goal is to support full interoperability while giving people a choice: they can participate only within Gander, or share with and interact across the broader open social network.

In other words, the AT Protocol is the open standard, Bluesky and Gander are apps built on that standard, and Wingspan is the Canadian infrastructure that helps power Gander while supporting Canada’s open social ecosystem.

Wingspan is Gander’s Canadian-built infrastructure for the AT Protocol.

Think of the AT Protocol like email: it’s an open standard that allows different apps to connect and communicate across a shared network. Wingspan is our contribution to that network: a Canadian ATmosphere designed to provide sovereign, Canadian-governed infrastructure for apps built on the AT Protocol.

Gander is the first app built on Wingspan, but our vision extends beyond a single social platform. We see a future where institutions, non-profits, businesses, communities, families and individuals all participate in Canada’s open social web. By providing Canadian-built infrastructure to support that ecosystem, we hope to strengthen digital sovereignty, foster healthier online communities, and help protect Canadian democracy.

Our goal is for both Gander and Wingspan to be open source, and we’ll release code over time as it’s ready.

Open sourcing a project isn’t as simple as publishing a repository. We want to ensure the code is well documented, maintainable and safe to release, while protecting security-sensitive components that shouldn’t be public.

As a small team focused on building the platform, we’re taking a phased approach. We’ll publish parts of Gander and Wingspan as they mature and we’re ready to support an open-source community around them.